EL MASRI ARRESTED, AGAIN?!

National.

A Lebanese-born German, who accuses the CIA of having kidnapped and tortured him, has been arrested on suspicion of setting fire to a shop in Bavaria. German police arrested Khaled al-Masri near the shop in Neu-Ulm on Thursday. He was sent to a psychiatric clinic and the fire was quickly extinguished.

His lawyer said his client had lacked proper psychological counselling.

Mr Masri says he was kidnapped in Macedonia in 2003, flown to a secret jail in Afghanistan and tortured there.

He says he was detained for five months before being released in Albania after the Americans realised they had got the wrong man.

Munich prosecutors have ordered the arrest of 13 suspected CIA agents in connection with the alleged "extraordinary rendition" case.

Mr Masri says his case is an example of the US practice of flying foreign terror suspects to third countries without judicial process for interrogation or detention.

He told the BBC in February: "I'm suffering from stress - this experience has left me traumatised."

His German lawyer, Manfred Gnjidic, said Mr Masri had acted out of desperation after arguing with staff at the shop in Neu-Ulm.

MD: You all may remember him of accusing the CIA and Macedonian police forces of torturing in a hotel room in Macedonia and handed over by the Macedonian police to the CIA who took him to Afghanistan. After a while he spoke out his story and there was much talked about in Europe after that, especially about secret CIA flights over Europe.